I’m building a Piratebox. It’s a wireless network in a box, hosting a website with chat, filesharing, and forum-like functionality. It runs continuously on a Raspberry Pi, like a wireless dead drop. This requires, of course, wireless networking capabilities.
Unsatisfied with the range and power of consumer wifi antennas, my group set out to make our own.
After some crude metalworking, we ended up with a passable double biquad antenna:
We wired it up to an Edimax EW7811un:
And we plugged it into a laptop. It worked! Broadcasting an ad-hoc network, we got an insane range boost, still going strong at a couple hundred meters.
Then we left it on overnight to test continuous operation. In the morning, range had gone down to only about twenty meters. Shortly after that, it stopped working entirely. Upon inspection we discovered that the Edimax was totally fried. RIP.
Now we’re looking for a new wifi dongle to use, and we need one that will be able to handle having a big honkin’ antenna rudely hacked onto it and run 24/7 indefinitely.
This isn’t exactly a use case we can get advice on from the local electronics shop, so do any of you have experience in this area?
